Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

In tweets, a different side of Nevada’s Harry Reid emerges

Harry Reid

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Sen. Harry Reid kisses Pilar Finalet on the head as he campaigns in Chinatown in Las Vegas Saturday, October 23, 2010.

Harry Reid: 1939 -2021

LAS VEGAS - WEDNESDAY, JULY 1, 2009 -  Senator Harry Reid speaks at the 6th Annual Joint Chambers Luncheon, which brings together the Las Vegas
Asian, Latin and Urban Chambers of Commerce, at Paris Las Vegas Wednesday, July 1, 2009.. LEILA NAVIDI / LAS VEGAS SUN

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Nearly two decades after Natalie Ravitz suffered a personal tragedy, she still recalls how then-U.S. Sen. Harry Reid comforted her with some heartfelt words over a cup of coffee.

She shared the story with the world via Twitter after the former Nevada senator’s death Tuesday at age 82.

Ravitz was U.S. Sen. Paul Wellstone’s press secretary when a plane crash in October 2002 took the lives of the Minnesota lawmaker and seven others, including his wife and a daughter.

Among those killed that day was Ravitz’s boyfriend and co-worker. Ravitz was at one point scheduled to be on the plane but didn’t make the trip.

Reid was among the first of Wellstone’s colleagues to fly to Minnesota, and Ravitz spent the day taking him to different events.

At the end of the day, she drove Reid back to the airport in the same SUV her boyfriend drove for campaign events, Ravitz said.

Someone told Reid about the situation, and as they were about to say goodbye, Reid asked if he could speak to Ravitz alone.

They walked to his private plane, a casino jet he had chartered, and he asked her to sit inside with him, Ravitz recalled.

He said something like, “I know what you lost and I know whose car you drove today. And I don’t want you to be afraid to get on a plane for the rest of your life. So let’s just go sit together for a little while,” Ravitz recalled. 

They sat there and had a cup of coffee, sharing stories about Wellstone. Ravitz told him about her boyfriend and the plans they had to move to Washington, D.C.

Reid told her that she had a job with him whenever she was ready.

“The empathy and emotional fortitude he showed that day has stuck with me always,” she said in her Twitter post. “And it wasn’t just that day; he followed up to reiterate his offer two more times.” 

Ravitz eventually went to work for then-U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer of California and worked closely with Reid’s team.

Reid “always had a joke or kind word for me,” Ravitz said.

She recalled the night the Senate passed the Affordable Care Act — Christmas Eve 2009. It was snowing and everyone was exhausted, she said.

They had no food, so staffers cracked into a tin of holiday nuts and cookies sent by constituents. Reid needled New York Sen. Chuck Schumer for stealing all the cashews.

The Senate finally reached a deal, and Reid, the Senate majority leader, called President Barack Obama on speakerphone to give him the news. Everyone cheered.

“Harry Reid played a defining role in two bookends of my Senate career. He was powerful and strategic, but also wry and soulful,” Ravitz said.

“I’m grateful to have known him, for what he gave this country, and for what he gave me sitting together quietly on a plane in Minnesota. RIP.”

The inspirational message has since been liked on Twitter more than 22,000 times and shared over 4,000 times.

Others have also shared stories that highlighted Reid’s thoughtfulness and persistence. 

New York Times reporter Reid Epstein recounted telling Reid after an interview in 2019 that he had been looking for a Reid campaign sign because it was his name too. Reid laughed and said yard signs were a waste of money, so he didn’t have many. 

Several months later, Epstein received a thick envelope in the mail without a return address but a Henderson, Nev., postmark. 

Inside, without any note, was a Reid yard sign that seemed to be from the 1986 state Democratic convention, Epstein said.

Ryan Grim, a Washington bureau chief for the Intercept, a nonprofit news organization, said on Twitter that Reid used to ask people where they went to college. The more elite the school they mentioned, the less interested Reid seemed to be. 

“He wanted people who fought to get where they are,” Grim said on Twitter. “He had a sharp class edge to him that is mostly gone in Washington among Democrats.”

Zac Petkanas, a former communications director for Reid, said the day after the senator won his last election, Reid asked him to sing “Home Means Nevada.” In one of their last texts, Reid recalled that moment and told Petkanas that he was his “favorite voice.” 

“There is going to be much said about how much Harry Reid accomplished like the Affordable Care (Act) and how he was a fighter,” Petkanas said via Twitter. “Both are true. But he was also just one of the kindest and most thoughtful human beings you’d ever want to meet.”

Guy Cecil, chairman of Priorities USA, a political action committee, said one of the last texts he got from Reid said, “u r my forever friend.”

“I feel exactly the same and am going to miss him terribly,” Cecil said on Twitter. “He was indefatigable, unfailingly loyal, and an American original.”